A place where I can share my thoughts about music movies and whatever else is interesting

Sunday, July 18, 2010

THREE ELEVEN, THREE THREE ELEVEN

As I suspected, the concert for 311 and The Offspring was both incredible and painful. The thought of having pit tickets to a show like this was just scary. I figured that we'd end up somewhere in the middle or towards the back, having to look over people who are a foot taller than me and watch for mosh pits. Well, I got the location completely wrong. We managed to somehow get a spot front and center against the metal rail. The only thing obstructing our view was the stack of amps/monitors directly in front of us. But, the stage was elevated so it wasn't a huge issue. The metal rail did turn out to be an issue...if only it had been padded. Everyone enjoys a concert in a different way I suppose. I think they should section off the crazed, shirtless drunk guys from the rest of the crowd. Give them a designated spot where they can be assholes and start unnecessary fights with people. One guy standing behind another in the front actually told him he needs to be more into the band and jump up and down or get the F out of the front. Quote of the concert has to go to the guy that was getting too close with Dave: "It's ok, I'm a homo." I'm sure that made Dave feel much better about the random gross dude rubbing up against him. Dave had to stand behind Jen the whole time to try and prevent her from being pushed too hard. We still all got pushed. I also managed to have about 5 crowd surfers fall directly on my head. Is this type of experience worth all the money?

Well, the bands themselves were great. I had never heard of Pepper before the show, but they were a great opening band. This of course was the calmest part of the show, probably because not a whole lot of people knew who they were and it was early. I enjoyed them though.

The Offspring came on and played an awesome set, including a new song (and according to the set list that Jen was able to get after they played, it was written down as "new song"). The new song really didn't do much for me. Dave recorded it with his phone so maybe he will post it on youtube. They played all of their hits that you would expect to hear, even the one i truly dislike which both Dave AND Jen reminded me of it being my "favorite song." I actually had forgotten the song had existed until they started playing it. Damn them all.

Correction from my previous post, this was indeed the 4th time seeing 311 live. They are always full of energy and know how to get the crowd going. They usually have a good mix of songs in their setlist considering the amount they have to choose from. I was lucky to get a few decent pictures and videos during their set, but at one point I just had to give up completely. The video below shows how I had to stop filming. There was so much going on it was sometimes hard to actually pay attention to them perform. Anytime the bouncers would point to the crowd it was a warning that there was an incoming crowd surfer. At one point I couldn't pay attention to P-Nut's bass solo because of having to worry about getting kicked in the head. I nearly missed Nick Hexum reaching out his hand right in front of me for the exact same reason.

I would do it all over again, just with hopes of coming away with less bruises and less of a sore neck. And maybe I wouldn't have to stand next to the guy who just jumps up and down, hits me in the face with his long sweaty hair, and flails his arms around nowhere near close to the beat. If anything, it served for more entertainment. We definitely got our moneys worth.

Next concert will be Paramore/Tegan and Sara/New Found Glory, but we will have seats. If we had pit tickets for that and were up front, I doubt it would have been anything like 311/Offspring. I don't think many people mosh and crowd surf at Paramore concerts. I could be wrong though

Remember to visit my youtube page for more videos from this concert and for future concert videos as well. There is a slight upgrade in quality now that I have the iPhone 4 to use. The audio is not nearly as distorted.